Photo by the author
Hey everyone,
Last week I wrote about the meditation on interdependence. I told you I was going to try it at the river and let you know what happened. The picture at the top of this post is the view from the bridge where I practiced. It’s hard to write about an experience in meditation, because to do so is to take it out of perception in the moment and turn it into an object, presented to you in language.
It rained a lot the first day and I was lazy and decided I wasn’t going to try to meditate in the rain. I kept thinking about you guys, and whether I was going to have a moment of perception I could tell you about, or whether I was going to stay in my head the whole time, thinking about the concept of interdependence. The more I thought about failing, and having to report back that I failed, the more I felt like a “self.” I felt small, and limited, and full of self evaluation.
There’s also something interesting about what happens to your perception of your body’s boundaries when you’re wearing snow pants. The plastic and the padding and the noise of snow pants really make you feel like a thing, encased. It was cold up there, especially when it cleared up and the sun came out and I was all puffy and heavy-booted, standing on that bridge, with the sun landing on my face and the sound of the river rushing beneath me.
The mountain was immense and the river was tremendous. I started thinking about the water in the river being the same water rushing in my blood. I looked out from my perch on the bridge, witnessing this entity I’ve been taught to label “nature” or the “earth” as if I am not nature, not the earth.
I can tell you that some time after that I did have a moment of perception. I can tell you that the mountain entered my breastbone and I felt it. It was a shock.
The shock threw me out of the moment and back into thinking and my own emotional state. I felt surprise, and then a feeling that doesn’t have words, and then I started noticing and thinking about noticing. The thought was: if I could know in my everyday perception that I am interdependent with all beings, then when this mountain was threatened, or this river was polluted, I wouldn’t be asking myself if I had time to do something about it.
When I pull my back muscle, it lets me know and I attend to it because I can’t ignore it–my muscle is signaling pain, limiting my motion, interrupting me with its embodied presence. The muscle is me and even if I’m irritated and don’t want to deal, I have to. I adjust. I know it is my responsibility and it’s going to get worse if I try to ignore it. If everything was “me” I would be labeled psychotic; I wouldn’t be able to function. And yet. “Me” is an impediment to interdependence. And loneliness, depression, alienation cannot exist without separation.
When I was on that bridge I didn’t see any evidence of separation, except in the houses on the banks of the river that were built and fortified, with walls and hedges and property limits. I could see the rest as one entity, one system, an integration of everything there, except me, the watcher. I took a picture, feeling stupid for doing so. I don’t know if I saw the scene as a whole because we are told “nature” is a thing, and a house is a thing, and a person is a thing. I hope I saw the whole because it is a whole, and what is an illusion is the fact that I can tell myself I am watching when in fact I am in the scene.
So that’s my report. One moment of perception, and a whole lot of thinking. Thanks for reading and listening. I’m working on an essay for next week that’s about transference and self disclosure, so please come back for that!
Have a lovely week and stay safe out there –
xo
Rebecca
Interdependence Report Back